


i can give forgiveness (take it before i change my mind)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [29]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon, F/M, Hurt Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Man 1, PTSD, Pepper's trying, Pre-Relationship, aftermath of Afhganistan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: Tony came back to her, but not really, because now he rubs at his chest like it pains him and mutters about a man named Yinsen in his sleep.a.k.aThe questions Tony has once he comes back from Afghanistan and how Pepper never has the right answers, but she's trying





	i can give forgiveness (take it before i change my mind)

**Author's Note:**

> So, if you're wondering about why the updates are coming in so quickly, it's because I'm going off to college soon and want to get as much of this finished as I can before I leave

Tony came back to her, but not really, because now he's always rubbing at his chest like it pains him and mutters about a man named Yinsen in his sleep.  

It scares her, sometimes, to be with him.  He asks her things she doesn't have answers to.  If she knows what it feels like to drown.  If she had ever seen anyone die before.  If she knew how many people he would have to save before he finally wahed away the oceans of blood dripping from his hands.

Pepper never has the words to make it better.

But she tries.

Sometimes, that's the best anyone could do.

"You didn't do anything wrong."  She has his hands gripped between her own, just trying to make him be still for one moment.  He is working constantly, not even coming up for air, and it scares her, because it does not look like it's for any of the projects that he started before he left and it's not weapons and she's almost certain it isn't the arc reactor, so Pepper's just left with the mounting fear that it isn't anything at all.  That he's just down in the workshop because there are less people to bother him, and all he's been doing is putting things together and tearing them apart.  "You have to believe that."

"People died for me."  He is trying to pull away but she would not let him.  He needs to breathe.  He needs to sleep.  He needs to take a moment and  _talk_ to her, god damn it, no matter how much she fumbles and stumbles through the conversation.  Pepper just wants him to feel better.  She just wants him to come  _home,_ for real this time, and to do that you have to let go.  "Good people."

She knows better, but she just wants to know -needs to know- what happened down in the cave so badly that she throws caution to the wind and let's the name fall from her lips anyways.  "Yinsen?"

He stares at her, and the silence hits her like a blow.  Tony pulls away from her and this time, she let's him.  "How do you know that name?"

Tony would not be telling her what happened.  Not today, not tomorrow.  Not to her, not to anyone.  Pepper thinks it's unhealthy, to keep it all bottled up inside, but he had told her that first night ( _the first night she had caught him waking up with screams in his throat and tears in his eyes, clawing at his chest like he needed to make sure everything was still intact_ ) that if he had a choice, she would never know what they did to him.   _I like the way you look at me,_ he had told her, and the words were worse because she could not see the look on his face.   _Like I'm the answer to all your prayers.  I don't want you to start looking at me like I'm something broken._

She promised him she wouldn't, but Pepper wasn't really all that sure.

"You talk in your sleep."  He closes his eyes and draws in one sharp, too deep breath, a butchered attempt at those calming techniques she had sent him a link to.  Tony hadn't talked to her for three days after that, but they had helped him, so she thinks it was worth it.  "Sometimes you mention him."

"I'm not talking about Yinsen."  Tony says the name like it cuts him.  "I was talking about the soldiers."

"Oh."  Pepper had thought about the soldiers a lot, too.  She had seen their faces splashed across the news, but she had been so swallowed up by the idea that Tony had gone missing that she could not find it in her to care.  She cares now.  "We made donations to the families."

His hands ball into fists, slam down onto his thighs.  "So we threw money at them.  But tell me, Pepper,"  He looks so angry.  He's angry all the time now, and he keeps waking up with more and more bruises, and Pepper just wants to ask him what's wrong but she's terrified of the answer.  "Will that bring them back?"

"No."  She reaches out, peels his fingers back so his hand lies flat.  There are half moon crescents dug into his skin and now there's motor oil smearing her palms, but she doesn't care.  "There's nothing anyone can do that would make that happen.  Not even the great Tony Stark."

"It was my weapons."

"But not you.  Not your brain, not your hands.  You didn't kill them."  She lifts his hand to her lips and kisses the burn marks on his knuckles ( _and god, how did the burns happen, was it him or was it them_ ).  He closes his eyes like it hurts him.  "You've got nothing to be sorry for."

"My weapons.  My responsibility."  His eyes are still closed.  "Isn't that what you told me?"

"That was a long time ago.  And I didn't mean it."  There is a sob clawing it's way up her throat but she pushes it back down.  She had her time to cry.  Now it's time to be the strong one, just so he has someone in his life to lean on.  "Not like this."

 _You're the only one I've got,_ he had told her, and Pepper had been proud at the time, but she didn't realize quite how hard that would be, how heavy the weight would sink down on her shoulders.  One person cannot be someone's everything, even when they try.

"It doesn't matter."  He'd got so many ghosts.  His mother, his father, those soldiers, this Yinsen person.  "It's what happened."

"Tony."  She tilts his chin, forces him to look at her.  "It's not a sin to survive."

"But the choices you make to keep it that way?"  He's looking at her like he knows things that she cannot fathom, and Pepper hates that look.  She wants to know him.  She wants to know everything about him.  "What do you think about those?"

It's just one more thing that Pepper doesn't have an answer for.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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